Long Knives

by Charles Rosenberg

  Gwen had been helping me tour what was available after I’d been turned down on Monday for da Vinci and Alligator. When I finally settled on Cochise, she made a note on her ever-present pad and said, “How the mighty hath fallen.”

  “What’s with you, Gwen?” I asked. “Once upon a time we were a close-knit team. And this isn’t about me. It’s about helping Jenna.”

  “Well, Mr. Tarza, that was then and this is now. And Jenna doesn’t work here anymore.”

  “But she’s now a client of the firm, and this deposition is key to getting rid of the ridiculous case that’s been filed against her.”

  “Thank you for reminding me about our obligations to clients, Mr. Tarza.”

  “This is about Tess, isn’t it?”

  “No. I’ve never met her and I’m sure she’s a fine woman. This is about keeping secrets from your team back then.”

  “Keeping secret, when I got back from my sabbatical fifteen years ago, that I had had an affair while I was in France?”

  “Yes, when you got back from that sabbatical—while you were gone I had to work for Mr. Klug, by the way—I specifically asked you how your sabbatical had gone and you said ‘It was fine. Nothing much happened. I mainly sat in the Tuileries and painted bad landscapes.’ So that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  “I suppose it was. But it was a lie designed to protect my own sensitive feelings.”

  “You had feelings?”

  I decided to ignore that. “Gwen, if I say I’m sorry I didn’t tell you way back then, can we enter into a peace treaty?”

  “If you say it and mean it.”

  “I’m truly sorry I didn’t tell you, and I mean it with all my heart.”

  “All right, then.”

  After that the frost melted and Gwen became helpful to me in getting ready for Quinto’s depo. Which was a blessing, because I hadn’t taken a deposition in maybe ten years. I was about to find out if it was like riding a bicycle.

  CHAPTER 50

  Week 2—Wednesday

  We had set the depo for 2:00 P.M. That way if we didn’t finish by 4:30, which I didn’t think we would, it wouldn’t be much of a problem to reach agreement with Quinto’s lawyer to resume the depo on another day. Or if no agreement could be reached, to persuade a court to order it to resume. On that later day, I would hope to be better prepared, with more material with which to question Quinto.

  At the appointed hour, Jenna, Oscar and I were seated at the table in Cochise, waiting. Jenna was to my immediate left, Oscar farther to my left at the end of the table. The court reporter, who had arrived at about 1:45 with her steno machine, was at the other end. The two seats across from me had been left open for Quinto and his lawyer.

  We didn’t know, of course, if they were actually coming. They hadn’t called to confirm that they were coming, but there was no requirement that they do so. If, on the other hand, they wanted to block the deposition as improperly noticed, they had needed, technically, to send me a written objection. They hadn’t done that either. But under the circumstances of so outrageously little notice at the very start of a lawsuit, no court was likely to sanction them if they just plain failed to show up.

  “By the way,” Jenna said, “UCLA was named as a defendant in the lawsuit, too. Did we notify them of the depo?”

  “I did that,” Oscar said. “And I called their general counsel’s office. They said that UCLA hasn’t yet been served with the lawsuit, so they weren’t going to attend. They’ll just read the transcript of the depo. I said I’d send them one.”

  “Did you ask them if they’re at least going to provide me with a defense to this stupid suit? I’m an employee, so they should.”

  “I asked them that, too, Jenna. They said they were studying the matter and would get back to us on it.”

  We all sat there for a while longer.

  By 2:15 I had pretty much concluded that Quinto and his lawyer weren’t coming.

  “Oscar,” I said, “when do you want to take us to Dubai for our dinner at the top of the Burj Khalifa?”

  “They’re coming,” he said. “The way this town works, you’re not really late for a depo until at least an hour has gone by. Especially if it’s downtown. It’s a bitch to get here.”

  Jenna began to rock in her chair, and I put my hand on the back to steady it.

  “At least they don’t squeak,” she said.

  I was about to respond when the conference-room phone rang. I picked it up and heard the receptionist announce that they had arrived. “Okay,” I said. “Please have Gwen bring them down.”

  “Well, I think,” Oscar said, “that, to mix a metaphor, the bet is now on the other foot, Robert, and you should take us to Dubai in early April. I hear the weather is pretty nice there that time of year. Still a bit rainy, but not yet hot.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “We’ll see if Quinto himself is actually here and not just a couple of lawyers.”

  A few minutes later, the conference-room door opened, and Gwen escorted Quinto and one lawyer into the room. I’d never set eyes on Quinto before, but he looked pretty much as Jenna had described him to me: young, slight and dark-haired, with a craggy face and deep-set brown eyes. He was wearing a not-very-well-made brown suit, a white shirt and a bright green tie, of a hue that you usually see only on St. Patrick’s Day. His lawyer, by contrast, whose improbable name was Thaddeus Stevens, was tall, thin and blond and was dressed like he might be headed to the beach after the depo—casual, open-collared shirt, bone-white khaki slacks and brown leather sandals, all rather expensive-looking. He was also wearing an iridescent wrap bracelet on his right wrist, made with tiny green stones.

  There were handshakes and introductions all around—even Quinto and Jenna shook hands—and the ritual offer of coffee, tea or soft drinks, which were set up on a credenza against the wall behind me. I also introduced Quinto and his lawyer to the court reporter, Hilda Vacarro by name. Treating court reporters like human beings instead of blocks of wood is not only polite but useful. Court reporters have to take down accurately what’s said in a deposition, but if they like you, they can clean up all your ums, uhs and other grunts and pauses. If they don’t like you, they can make you sound like the village idiot.

  “Mr. Giordano,” I said, “are you sure you wouldn’t like some coffee before we begin?”

  He looked at me, then pointed at Jenna. “Not while she’s anywhere near the stuff.”

  There was dead silence in the room.

  Jenna’s response was to take a rather noisy swig from her own already filled coffee cup—a very large one that said JENNA on it in big letters—that she’d had ever since I first met her. “Whatever,” she said.

  Stevens, on the other hand, got up from the table, walked to the credenza, poured himself a cup—black—without any apparent concern and sat back down, clearly ready to begin.

  I had looked Stevens up before the depo and discovered that he’d gone to a law school I’d never heard of in another state. But I had long ago learned to take seriously every lawyer who’d managed to pass the California bar—the hardest in the country—without regard to their credentials or their dress code. Caring about those things was a rookie mistake I’d made in my first year of practice, when I’d been drubbed by a lawyer from a no-name school who appeared to own only one suit and tie, and a particularly ugly tie at that.

  It was almost three o’clock, and I did have at least two hours’ worth of questions I wanted to get done. I didn’t want them to announce at four o’clock that they had to leave to beat the worst of the traffic. It was time to get started.

  CHAPTER 51

  I turned to the court reporter. “Ms. Vacarro, would you swear in Mr. Giordano, please?”

  She turned to Quinto. “Mr. Giordano, please raise your right hand.”

  He complied, and she asked, “Do you solemnly state that the testimony you will give in this deposition proceeding will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

  “I
do,” he said.

  Before I truly began the deposition, there was something I needed to do. I had thought about doing it off the record but decided to make it a formal part of the deposition. “Mr. Giordano,” I said, looking across the table at him, “before I begin today, I understand that you lost your brother early last week, and I want to extend my condolences.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I lost a sibling myself many years ago, and I know how difficult it can be.”

  “I appreciate your understanding.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if things are probably still quite emotional for you, so if anything I ask you is upsetting such that you need to take a break, please let me know and we’ll be sure to do that.”

  “Thank you. I don’t think that will happen, but I’ll let you know if it does.”

  I did, of course, actually feel for him. But my reason for offering condolences and the opportunity to take a break is that I didn’t want him to have the excuse at trial to change his testimony by saying, “Oh, I was so emotional that I just couldn’t give a straight answer, and that guy Tarza wouldn’t let up on me.”

  With that out of the way, it was time to begin in earnest.

  “Mr. Giordano,” I said, “have you ever had your deposition taken before?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, well, first, the court reporter, Ms. Vacarro, who is to your left, will be taking down my questions and your answers and will later give them to you in printed form to review.”

  “Okay.”

  “Although your counsel has no doubt gone over with you the procedures we’ll be following today, I’d like to review them with you quickly myself, so that we’re all on the same page about what we’re doing here.”

  “Okay.”

  I then went over with him the list of what lawyers call the admonitions, admonishing him, among other things, to be sure to give his answers audibly, rather than just shaking his head yes or no, to be sure to listen carefully to each question and let me know if he didn’t understand it—I’d be happy to rephrase—and reminding him that although his lawyer might make an objection, he needed to go ahead and answer the question unless his lawyer instructed him not to, that any objections would be ruled upon if and when the case went to trial. He rather docilely answered “Okay” to all of the admonitions. But then, most people do.

  “And do you understand, Mr. Giordano, that when you give an answer today, it is under the same obligation to tell the truth as if you were in a courtroom with a judge present?”

  “Yes.”

  Then I hit him with something I only rarely do, but this seemed like the right occasion. “And do you understand, Mr. Giordano, that the penalty for perjury—for not telling the truth today—is, pursuant to Sections 118 and 118.1 of the California Penal Code, up to four years in prison?”

  Many lawyers in Stevens’s position would have objected to that as harassment and complained that I was suggesting that Quinto was a liar. Stevens did something different.

  “Isn’t there a fine, too?” he asked.

  I was flummoxed. I had never had an opposing lawyer do that before, and not only that, I didn’t know if there was a fine. I wasn’t sure what to say. A point for him.

  “I don’t know,” I said. And then, trying to recover, “Mr. Giordano, do you understand the penalty for perjury?”

  “Yes,” he responded. “I understand the prison thing, and I guess the two of you will let me know if there’s also a fine.” The little schmuck actually grinned, and I wondered if he and Stevens had arranged it all in advance.

  I now faced a choice. I could start with softball questions about things like age and education, or I could go right to the heart of what I really wanted to know. I usually start with the softballs, because one of my goals in a deposition is to lull the deponent into a fuguelike state in which he’ll forget that his lawyer and everyone else are in the room and just want to talk to me—to answer my questions. Softball questions at the start are one way to try to achieve that.

  “Mr. Giordano, how old are you?”

  “I’ll be twenty tomorrow.”

  I decided not to wish him a happy birthday. Under all the circumstances, it seemed not the right thing to do.

  “And where were you born?”

  “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”

  “So you are a citizen of the United States?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you also a citizen of any other country?”

  “Yes. I have dual citizenship with Italy.”

  “Any other citizenships?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you go to high school?”

  “I graduated from Marconi High School in Pittsburgh.”

  “Currently, do you have any degrees other than your high school diploma?”

  “No. I’m a sophomore at UCLA, so I hope to have a BS in biochemistry in a couple of years.”

  “Mr. Giordano, I have premarked as Exhibit A to this deposition the Complaint—the lawsuit—in this matter, and I’m going to hand it to you. I’ve also brought courtesy copies for your counsel.” I handed the marked exhibit to him and also gave copies to Stevens, and to Oscar and Jenna.

  “Mr. Giordano, have you read the complaint in this matter?”

  “Yes.”

  “To the best of your knowledge, is everything stated in the complaint true?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “All right, let me direct your attention to paragraph four, in which it is alleged, and I quote, ‘Primo Giordano was my brother.’ Do you see that?”

  “Yes.”

  “How old was your brother Primo?”

  “He was twenty-nine. Would have been thirty in March.”

  “Was he a full brother or a half brother?”

  “A half brother. He and I have the same father but different mothers. His mother died and our father, who lives in Rome, remarried.”

  This was going well. He was volunteering things.

  “Where was Primo born?”

  “In Rome.”

  I thought to myself that it was interesting that Stevens had not objected to any of these questions, even though relevancy objections weren’t appropriate in depositions, or otherwise tried to get in the way of the questioning.

  “Do you have other siblings?”

  “Objection, relevancy,” Stevens said.

  As is the case with most witnesses upon the first objection being made, Quinto didn’t answer the question. He just kind of sat there confused, despite my earlier admonition to him that unless his lawyer instructed him not to answer a question, he should go ahead and answer it.

  I didn’t respond to the objection—you never should, unless the objection causes you to revise your question. For example, if probing the objection a bit more might help you improve your question and avoid any chance a judge will sustain the objection and block the answer from being admitted at trial.

  “Please answer the question, Mr. Giordano.”

  “Well, I have three other siblings.”

  “Could you please name them and tell me their ages?”

  “Objection, relevancy.”

  “Well,” Quinto said, ignoring the objection, “there is my brother Secondo, who is twenty-seven, my sister Terza, who is twenty-five and my brother Quarto, who is twenty-three.”

  “So you’re all named in birth order, First, Second, Third and so forth?”

  “Yes. It’s an old Italian tradition for sons. But my father was very modern and applied it to girls, too. So my sister is Terza—third. If she’d been a boy, she would have been Terzo.”

  “Thank you. Mr. Giordano, let me now direct your attention again to paragraph four, where it says, ‘My brother Primo had possession of a map showing the exact location of sunken treasure.’ Do you see that?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Did Primo own the map?”

  “Objection. Calls for a legal conclusion from someone who is not a lawyer. And you haven’t established th
at he has any other qualification to answer the question.”

  “I’ll rephrase,” I said. “Mr. Giordano, do you have reason to believe that Primo owned the map?”

  “I’ll renew the objection,” Stevens said, “but go ahead and answer, Quinto, if you’re able to. Keep in mind that Mr. Tarza isn’t asking you for a legal opinion, just what your understanding of the matter is…if you have one.”

  Quinto sat up straighter in his chair. “Primo never owned the map. I own it.”

  “So, to your understanding, Primo didn’t have an ownership interest in the map prior to his death?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any reason to believe that any of your other siblings have any ownership interest in the map?”

  “They don’t.”

  “Do you have any reason to believe anyone else has an ownership interest in the map?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any reason to believe anyone other than you has an interest of any kind in the map, even if it’s not as an owner?”

  “No.”

  “Would it surprise you to learn that Primo told Professor James that the two of you were co-owners of the map?”